There have been a collection of high-profile and well attended mobile health (mHealth) “summits” held around the world in the past few years, including last month’s second annual mHealth Summit in Washington, D.C. (headlined by Bill Gates and Ted Turner), but the really interesting conversations are happening on the African continent. While large providers in the “developed world” are talking about the need for business plans and analysis, the debate in Kenya and Nigeria and Ghana is on how country-based leadership can scale up proven programs, develop sustainability, and provide practical and integrated models for cooperation between the government, mobile service providers, the medical community and the private sector.

At this First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research there have been a number of concurrent sessions on how best to make the link between research and decision-making. How do we make research relevant and timely so that it can inform policy-making?

MSH served as a panelist on the panel “Health systems and national policy-making: Strengthening the Connection,” which provided good examples of studies from Nigeria and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region that provided insight into this gap.

In Nigeria, a study focused on how the gap between policy makers and researchers could be bridged. How can research be made attractive so policy makers desire it? Through a cross-sectional survey, they set out to improve the skills of policy makers in evidence-informed policy making. A platform was created where the two met on neutral ground to develop the research agenda. What came out of this collaboration were five skill building workshops where pre/post data was collected. There was much participation and enthusiasm by both parties which culminated in six policy briefs to improve health systems operation in Nigeria.

As the country with the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world, outranked only by India, Nigeria loses one in every 18 women during child-birth. The country also has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, one of the lowest life expectancy rates---estimated at 47 years---and the second largest population of people living with HIV & AIDS, with only 30% of people eligible for anti-retroviral treatment able to access these life-saving drugs.